Theories of Learning

Sep 29

Learning

• An experiential process

• Resulting in a relatively permanent change

• Not explained by temporary states, maturation, or innate response tendencies

Mental representation

Internal images, symbols, or concepts our mind creates to represent objects

Association

relationship between objects, person, or situations

Content

• knowledge and understanding

• cognitive domain

• to know

• to understand

Skills

• psychomotor and process skills

• active domain

• to be able to do

Attitudes

• interests, beliefs, opinions, values

• affective domain

• to believe

• to feel

GI (Greatest Generation)

• Built society after World War II

• Hard times made them resilient

• Comfortable times often lead to weaker individuals

Silent Generation

• Grew up during economic hardship and war recovery

• Known for being disciplined, reserved, and traditional

• Valued conformity and stability

Boomers

• Growth in population due to post-war baby boom

• Problem: Overpopulation

Gen X

• Career-focused, often sacrificing work-life balance

• Many worked abroad, leading to less nurturing of children

• Their children were sometimes labeled as KSP (“kulang sa pansin” or attention-seeking).

Gen Y (Millenials)

• Known as the “Me Generation.”

• Focused on themselves, sometimes seen as entitled.

• Less loyalty to companies or institutions.

• Prone to mental health issues but more open to seeking mental health services.

Gen Z

• Share traits with Millennials but are more politically aware

• Concerned with current events and social issues

• Prefer sensing learning styles—stimulated by visuals, tech, and online learning

• Considered digital natives

Gen Alpha

• Also digital natives, even more immersed in technology

• Adaptive, innovative, and entrepreneurial (especially in digital platforms)

• Environmentally conscious and socially aware

• Open to mental health services like Gen Z

Principles

• Identify certain factors that influence learning and describe the specific
  effects these factors have

• Tell us WHAT factors are important for learning

• Tend to be fairly stable over time = LAW

Theories

• provide explanations about the underlying mechanisms evolved in
  learning

• Tell us WHY these factors are important

• Continue to change
  

Theory

• provides a general explanation for observations made over time.

• explains and predicts behavior.

• can never be established beyond all doubt.

Sensorimotor Stage (0 - 2yrs)

• learning through senses & movement

Preoperational Stage (2–7 yrs)

• imagination, but limited logic

Concrete Operational Stage (7–11 yrs)

• logical thinking about concrete events

Formal Operational Stage (12+ yrs)

• abstract, logical, and critical thinking

Rationalist

believed truth is found within ourselves through reason

World of ideas (Forms)

• perfect, eternal, flawless ideas (e.g., one’s conception of  triangles or circles.

• Knowledge innate—in place at birth

• Role of teacher → not to give knowledge, but to draw it out through questioning (Socratic method → self-reflection).

• Learning passive process

Plato

Since knowledge already exists within and is simply “drawn out.”

Aristotle

“There’s nothing in the intellect that wasn’t previously in the senses”

Empiricist

 truth is found outside ourselves, through the senses

Aristotle

Developed a scientific method of gathering data to study the world around him

John Locke

Opposed Plato (innate knowledge) and agreed with Aristotle (knowledge from experience)

Tabula Rasa (Blank Slate) Theory

humans are born with no ideas, only capacities

Metacognitive tool

Combining emotional, factual and skill knowledge into a ?

Jungle, runs

Our brains are like a ? - nothing ? the jungle

Atrophy

There is natural pruning or neural pruning that occurs when parts are used and when they are not used

Auditory activity

Simultaneous stimulation with language and music would cause a more bilateral activation of the auditory cortex

Visual activity

Exposed to stimulation consisting of both pattern and color, increased activity corresponds to the primary cortex

Thinking activity

Increased activity corresponds to the frontal cortex

Memory activity

Region of the brain implicated in learning and memory, hippocampus integrates sensory information along with amygdala

Hippocampal formation

Converting short term to long term memory

Amygdala

Storing house of emotional memory

Motor of Kinesthetic activity

Subject to hop up and down on his right foot, caused supplementary motor cortex and cortical metabolic activation

Brain stem

Primitive brain controlling survival functions

• breathing

• consciousness

• digestion

Think vegetable

Cerebellum

Center for movement control

• Voluntary muscle movements

• Fine motor skills

• Posture, balance, coordination

Think repetitive movements

Cerebrum

The surface of the brain

• Touch

• Vision

• Hearing

• Reasoning

Think Human

Deep learning: through scaffolding

Requires organizing and linking knowledge for later retrieval

Meta-cognition

• Monitoring your progress as you learn

• Making changes and adapting your strategies if you perceive you are not doing so well

Learning

• Modification in behavior due to an increase in knowledge or skills

• Requires the storage and retrieval of information

Memory

• Ability to recall information and experiences

• Neither a single entity nor a phenomenon that occurs in a single area of the brain

Short-term memory

• Solves problems through reasoning process (ex. organizing facts into a coherent essay)

• Combine or “chunk”

• Mnemonics

Long-term memory -

• Declarative - Factual

• Episodic - Events or experiences

• Semantic - Words

• Procedural - Step by step

Sensory memory

• transfers to short-term memory

• visual, auditory, and olfactory information

Long-term memory

• People use attention, repetition, and association with past learning to encode information

• encoding happens when information is repeatedly processed in the hippocampus

retained

The more associations made with established learning, the better new information is ?

neuronal networks

Memories are not stored in a single location. They are complex ? spread through the brain’s entire surface

Review

retrieval of information temporarily copies it into working memory for further processing in hippocampus

REM sleep

memories are replayed and reinforced in hippocampus